by Nic Sim
How effective is your ad?
Yes, the ad you run in the local newspaper, the ad you put in the local magazine.
Do you even know?
The reason I’m asking is, most people I meet tell me that they run ads in newspapers and don’t see any results. Therefore, their conclusion is: ads don’t work. At least, not for them. Maybe it works for big companies with big advertising budgets.
I’ve been running the same ad in every printed issue of a local magazine. EVERY ISSUE. Granted, there are only four issues in a year but that’s not the point. And I don’t have a big advertising budget either (remember, I run a website design/web hosting/web marketing business from home). But I believe in spending money effectively and my ad, believe it or not, has generated enough interest and income for me to continue supporting the magazine every issue.
Is there some magic to running ads? I don’t think so. But you have to track how your ad fares when you run it.
Do you track your ad’s effectiveness? Do you track how many people read your ad and contact you? Is there a way for you to make it an exact science? Tracking, testing, tweaking and doing the whole process again is tedious… but you start learning about your target audience, your prospects, what they want. Then you can make your ad even better. Even more effective.
But don’t expect to run ONE ad and hope people come flocking to you. Frequency is important. So is the message. Craft your message well, and put in regularly in front of the people whom you believe will have a good chance of becoming your customers.
To start you off (if you’re hankering for tips and how-tos), here’s an article which teaches you exactly how you can make your marketing more effective. Take it away, Terry!
Effective Marketing for the Business Owner Requires Repetition, Measurement, and Targeting
Copyright 2005 Terry Strom
Marketing is all about repetition, tenacity, monitoring,
fine-tuning and focus on your target market. Many business
owners send out one or two advertisements and don’t get the
response they wanted; therefore they stop that
advertisement and move on to another advertisement or
marketing tactic.
While others have no way of determining the response to
their marketing and continue to throw away bad advertising
dollars after bad advertising dollars because they don’t
have any type of direct response marketing in place in
order to determine if their marketing is effective or not.
The first business owner has neglected to realize that for
his/her company’s product or service to gain trust with a
totally cold market, repetition is one of the most
effective marketing tactics. The first time your
prospective client sees your advertisement, they glance at
it and throw it away because you and what you offer have no
connection to them. Then the second time you advertise
with the same message that customer thinks “I have seen
this before”. The fifth time, he or she is wondering “what
is this company about”. The 10th time, they are thinking
“this must be an established company”, and the 15th time
they see your advertisement they are saying (if they are
part of your target market and you properly marketed to
that target market) “maybe I should buy this product or
service”. This was all by spaced repetition, where you
send out your advertising weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly on
a regular basis.
The second business owner did not use any type of direct
response marketing and therefore had no idea whether
his/her marketing was working or not, or how well it was
working if it was having a positive effect. They just kept
spending the money week after week and “hoped” their
advertising was working. To give you an example of what
direct response marketing is and is not, think of the
difference between these two advertisements in a newspaper
regarding a new restaurant in town. Advertisement #1 gives
the name, location, phone number, and hours of operations.
However, advertisement # 2 gives everything in
advertisement # 1 plus a coupon for 10% off of their first
meal at that restaurant. Which advertisement will tell the
business owner if the advertisement is working or not. Of
course, advertisement #2, because the customer will have to
bring in their coupon to receive the 10% discount off their
first meal, which will give the business owner much needed
information regarding how his/her ad is pulling, and as
important, what type of clientele that ad is appealing to.
The third very important ingredient to increase you
marketing effectiveness is focus, and more specifically
targeting.
Therefore, first of all regarding your target market you
need to determine:
(1) Exactly what and who it is?
(2) Where does you target market hang out, what do they
read, what do they attend; basically where do you find them?
(3) Is your marketing program properly addressing the
needs, desires, wants, etc. of your target market?
I want you to think of a 250 lb man walking in loafers
across a freshly watered lawn, and then I want you to think
of a 100 lb woman walking across that same lawn in high
heeled pumps. Now even though the man weighs two and a
half times what the woman does, whose shoe heel will sink
deep into the wet soft ground of that freshly watered lawn.
Well, you know the answer to this question; it will be the
heel of the much lighter woman because the pointed tip of
her high heeled pumps will focus all of her 100 lbs on a
much smaller area than the much bigger shoe heel of the 250
lb man. Meaning the woman’s pointed shoe heel focuses much
more weight per square inch on the soil than the man’s much
larger loafer heel. In even more basic terms, the woman’s
weight is targeted over a much smaller area than the man’s
shoe heel and therefore her heel has much more penetration
into the soil of the wet lawn.
In the same way, you must focus your marketing into a
smaller more targeted area (like the woman’s pointed shoe
heel), so that it has much more penetration into your
target market. But to do that you must first be very
specific on what your target market is. Too many business
owners are targeting their market like the man’s very large
loafer heels, and as a result, just like the man’s heel
barely makes an indention (meaning little or no
penetration) into the soil of the wet lawn, also the
marketing of these business owners’s barely makes an
indention or penetration into their target market.
It’s sad how much money is wasted by business owners on
un-target and un-measured advertising. It’s not bad for
all the magazines, newspapers, circulars, mailers, and
online and offline advertisers; however, many business
owners could make their marketing and advertising dollars
go much further if they were to spend more time on these
very fundamental marketing basics.
———————————————————————
Terry Strom is a business coach, author, and professional
speaker in the areas of motivation, sales, and
communication skills. He has spoken in front of over
250,000 sales professionals, and has been the Vice
President of three corporations. You can contact him at
www.optimizeyourcompany.com.
———————————————————————